How Connecticut is developing untapped talent to fill 30,000 open jobs statewide

In the wake of the pandemic, Connecticut is facing an unusual workforce challenge.

In 2022 and 2023, Connecticut saw the best two-year period of job growth in a quarter century. Early this year, the number of private sector jobs statewide reached a level not seen since 1990. It was a similar story for state agency positions, which have risen over the past four years by nearly 10%. In fiscal year 2023 alone, state agencies filled nearly 9,500 vacancies, including many created as result of a large retirement wave in 2022. As of May, Connecticut had restored nearly 103% of the nonfarm jobs lost during the pandemic.

Yet continued job growth has not generated unalloyed good news. The state still has a consistently high level of job openings as workers leave their roles, usually to retire or take another job. Meanwhile, Connecticut’s unemployment rate remains historically low but has inched up in recent months as job seekers looking to take advantage of a strong economy dive back into the labor pool.

These two data points suggest a mismatch between Connecticut residents looking for work and the Connecticut companies looking to hire. 

Filling these open roles and providing opportunities for more Connecticut residents requires a new approach to developing the state’s workforce—one that focuses on job candidates’ skills. By bringing together employers, community organizations and education providers across the state, Connecticut is building a new skills-based ecosystem. The goal is twofold. Officials need to find and develop untapped talent that can help build a more diverse and inclusive statewide labor force that can lift up veterans, community college graduates, apprentices, and all talented individuals skilled through alternative routes. They also must meet the needs of employers whose growth can create a more robust economy.

The Connecticut approach can serve as a model for other states. Here are three lessons learned:

Lead With Demand

To better understand the priorities of both employers and state residents,  Connecticut in 2022  created 14 regional sector partnerships. RSPs are employer-led coalitions of companies in the same industry—such as health care, manufacturing, infrastructure, clean energy, logistics and bioscience—that collaborate to address common challenges around education, economic growth and workforce development in their part of Connecticut. These coordinated and collaborative partnerships allow industry, with the support of public agencies, local school districts, postsecondary institutions, and community partners, to continuously improve workforce programs to meet the needs of both employers and residents.

RSPs are the driving force behind a new initiative funded by a $23.9 million federal grant—the largest in the nation awarded through the Economic Development Authority’s Good Jobs Challenge. Connecticut’s Strengthening Sectoral Partnerships Initiative is working to place 2,000 residents, primarily from underserved communities, into high-quality jobs in the high-demand sectors of health care, manufacturing and information technology.

Seek Out Untapped Talent From Within the State

The data is clear: More Connecticut residents are eager to work, but many need more education and skills training—as well as other support—to get jobs that pay family-sustaining wages. 

The state’s Career ConneCT program recruits unemployed and underemployed state residents—two-thirds of them between ages 18 and 34—for training so they can quickly gain skills and credentials aligned with industry needs. Importantly, the program also provides support, including transportation, child care and housing, that many individuals need to successfully participate in training and work. 

The goal is to put more Connecticut residents to work in jobs that Connecticut employers need. By 2025, Career ConneCT is on track to have moved 6,000 workers into quality jobs in fast-growing industries such as health care, advanced manufacturing and IT.

Don’t Go It Alone

Good ideas can come from anywhere. The RSPs, for instance, have provided significant insights into the talent needs of various industries and the workforce challenges in all corners of the state. 

Because Connecticut is an employer in its own right—the state has more than 32,000 executive branch employees—it is a member of Skills in the States, a community of practice assembled by the National Governors Association and supported by the nonprofit social enterprise Opportunity@Work. Though Connecticut dropped the bachelor’s degree requirement for most state jobs in the early 1980s, the governor just signed legislation which further codified that practice into state law. The bill sets forth that unless there is a genuine need, “in no event shall a degree from an institution of higher education be required” for positions in state government.  

Over the next year, Connecticut, building on this momentum, will work with 21 other states and Puerto Rico to identify and share challenges and best practices around skills-based talent management so leaders can enhance their own efforts to recruit, retain and advance an inclusive state workforce while addressing public-sector talent shortages. 

For the past two years, Connecticut has worked to build a thriving and more equitable workforce ecosystem that has harnessed the power of multiple partners—education, business, government and community organizations—all moving toward the same shared goal.

No single entity—or a single program—will help more Connecticut employers connect to the talent sources they need to grow and assist Connecticut residents in finding the stable and better-paying employment they need to thrive. But by creating a coordinated and coherent system that understands the needs of both employers and residents, seeks the untapped talent within state borders and encourages collaboration within the state and outside it, Connecticut can attract, retain and inspire a diverse array of students, workers and businesses and move the state forward.

Dr. Kelli-Marie Vallieres is chief workforce officer with the Connecticut Office of Workforce Strategy. Dr. Alice Pritchard, is director of workforce development and strategic initiatives with the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services.